What is good or great art is an interesting question.
The old fashioned view contends that it must not only have grace and
quality, but it should also have a message or a view of an inner world,
some unique vision. Sometimes the former is sacrificed for the latter
[e.g. Ernst, Tanguy, Dali]. In the case of Leonardo, we can see in his
work an abundance of grace, quality and technical competence, but combined
also with warmth, humanity, enigmatic mystery, a luminous naturalism and
charm - these are enigmatic factors that consistently shine out of his
pictures. In the case of Vermeer, we can see similar qualities combined
with great precision and great clarity of a tranquil scene. As well as
exceptional clarity and realism, his pictures are suffused with tremendous
tranquillity, as if his mind is imbued like that of a Buddha, with
that same quality; or maybe he craved it.

Salvador Dali : Gala
Lincoln + Meditative Rose, 1958.

In the case of Constable, van Gogh, Cézanne,
Gericault, Redon, Denis, Picasso, Turner, Canaletto, Laloue, Rembrandt,
Joseph Wright, Turner, Matisse - in every case we can see evidence of a
world, an inner world, and an intelligence that creates symbolic meaning
as well as mere quality and competence. Many great artists are also
fertile and prolific [e.g. Dali, Picasso, Goya], but not all of them [e.g.
Vermeer, Leonardo].

J. M. Turner : The
fighting temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838

J. M. Turner : The
Grand Canal Venice

To some extent, inevitably, cultivating an inner world
serves to protect us from the changes occurring in the outer world. To
some degree, it acts as a 'defence mechanism' to dampen, deflect and
compensate for excessive change, or excessively swift change, in the outer
world. An inner world is a sanctuary, a warm, predictable and comforting
place constructed by ourselves on our own terms, according to our own
rules, and into which we can retreat in times of sadness and anxiety. It
confers a degree of detachment from the raging and often disappointing
vicissitudes of the outer world. It is, therefore, carved to some degree
from our own suffering. This belies perhaps, the old adage that the artist
must suffer and that good art can only be distilled from pain.

Joseph Wright
(1734-97) often called Wright of Derby. The Orrery.

The inner world comes from selected elements in the
outer world, especially in childhood. One instinctively picks up and
internalises cherished elements of the outer world and these in turn
become major elements of the creative inner landscape, the realm of
imagination. They comprise our inner world and become sanctified,
totemised and idealised elements of personality, and sacralised
attraction. Each according to their gifts, predisposition and inclination,
this inner world is the undoubted source of the world’s literature,
music and art.

William Blake : God
creates the World & Glad Day.

In my own case, I was inclined to form an inner world
even as a very young child I had a strong preference for atmospheric
places and minor key music, etc. To me, the world I was born into became
absorbed and internalised in all its phenomenal detail. I absorbed it
totally and it became recreated in my mind as a place more real than
the outer world. I absorbed and retained it. This is especially true of my
grandmother's house from the age of about 2 to 10 during which time that
place became my golden, sacred and precious kingdom; it was filled with
warm sunshine and safety for me. I resonated with that world completely
and it has left a profound, vivid and permanent impression upon my
mentality. Elements of the outer world of those times and places became
strongly internalised, which ultimately became my inner world. Conflicts
between this inner world and the outer world either did not exist or were
of no consequence, for all that was locked up in my inner world was
genuine material hewn from those times and places in the real outer world
and then stored up forever for me to savour whenever I so wished and as
the inclination took me.

Henri Matisse :
Harmony in Red.

Henri Matisse :
Guitar.

What is especially apparent in Leonardo's work is that
it reflects an inner world peopled by subdued colours, graceful forms,
softened faces, kindly and enigmatic expressions, twilights, mysterious
conifers and mountain scenes, and a subtle hint of the spiritual yearning
in man. These are in his pictures precisely because they are objects of
his inner landscape and for no other reason whatever. They are forms
lifted from the outer world, borrowed as it were, but employed by him as
emblems that are resonant with the meaning of key elements of his inner
world.

Leonardo : Sketch of a
Girl's Head.

Leonardo : The
Annunciation.

Leonardo : Virgin and Child
with St Anne.

In more modern examples, like Picasso, Matisse and Van
Gogh, the forms are may be more rugged, rough-hewn, distorted and executed
with less obvious skill or delicacy; colours are bolder, but generally,
they also faithfully reflect actual inner worlds and are therefore great
art. Such as Yves Tanguy, Ernst, Escher and Magritte - again, in such
work, we certainly encounter inner worlds of form, tone, colour
and sensation wholly new and unique but still stunning and consistent with
the inner worlds that created them, and from which they came. Such is
necessarily also great art. In the case of Cézanne, Monet and Renoir,
then again even though they form a different artistic clique [genre] from
that of Leonardo, and a very new technique, yet it is still great art and
they are acknowledged as artistic masters. In every case, we can see
that the art and the inner world of the artist resonate with each
other completely and inescapably. They reflect each other and within
one, the other can be seen or glimpsed. Theirs are graceful and
beauty-filled worlds.

Gericault : The
Madman.

Claude Monet : Le jardin at
Argenteuil.

In the case of Gericault, we can see warmth and
humanity - compassion in the faces of those he has painted. A similar
compassion as found in Franz Hals and Rembrandt, even in Velasquez. In the
case of Turner, Boudain and Constable then a softness and speckled use of
colour and light are apparent which was new and with which they
experimented, but they are still masters and their world is great. It is
consistent with their world of inner vision. Likewise, with Denis and
Redon - mysterious worlds, or in Blake's case a biblical world of wonder
and child-like innocence. Again, however, their art is broadly consistent
with the inner worlds that spawned them.

Eugène Boudin :
Landscape near Trouville with River and Boats.

Rembrandt : Landscape with
a Stone Bridge.

One can argue that one does not attain an immortal soul
unless one develops an inner world. Just as in the film, Gladiator, the
artist yearns and strives to actualise a dimly perceived world of inner
vision, which he has internalised, and cherished as a place of love,
safety and spiritual refuge, and which he strives through his art to
intensify and into which he hopes to be absorbed at death.

Canaletto : Boat
Festival on the Grand Canal, Venice.

Renoir : Two Sisters.

Early art seems to have been exceptionally dominated by
classical and religious themes, the portraits of key figures, rich
patrons, powerful figures and royalty. In some regards, it might be
said that art subordinated itself in this way to outside interests for
centuries. Some might even go so far as to say that it prostituted itself
in this way. Yet, in another sense, this domination was sound and natural,
as it dealt with predominantly religious themes that were valid, and
willingly and eagerly embraced until such views shifted with the times.

Maurice Denis : Mary
Visits Elizabeth, 1894.

Turner : Self-portrait as a
Young Man.

This trend persisted right down to the 1500s, when
ordinary scenes and ordinary people first began to figure as valid
subjects of art and to appear increasingly within art from that time
forwards. Leonardo and Michelangelo were actually quite revolutionary
innovators, in a quiet way, in this respect, because not many artists were
doing this at that time. The same can be said for the entire Dutch school
of painting scenes and people in quite ordinary and unremarkable settings
throughout the 1600s and 1700s. That epoch saw an explosion in this type
of ordinary art for the ordinary people.

Paul Cezanne :
Apples.

Paul Cezanne : Mont
Sainte-Victoire.

Increasingly, however, and as soon became apparent, the
artist ever strives to be faithful to his inner vision and to depict
aspects of it as accurately as he is able. They see their inner vision as
their greatest strength and their precious source of inspiration and
ideas. They ceaselessly wish to follow their inner voice, which is the
voice of their instinctive attractions and their intuition. This endorses
an ambivalent, sceptical or dismissive attitude on their part towards the
conventions of the outer world and society, such as social conventions,
which they may hold in contempt or flaunt. They often adopt a rebellious
and dissolute lifestyle partly in contempt of convention and the outer
world, which they see as being of subordinate importance to their inner
world of imagination.

Van Gogh : Wheat
Field with a Cypress Tree.

Van Gogh : Cornfields.

Velasquez : Portrait of a
Pope.

The outer world thus starts to take on a more
tangential and background position, and becomes imbued with a distance,
and this attitude can place the real world more at arm's length. For
example, Goya can be seen as an artist so weighed down by artistic
obligations and duties that suppressed his inner artistic talents and
tendencies, and consuming aspects of artistic inclination of his inner
world. Eventually he broke free of this constraint to live solely for his
intuition, skills and feelings, which comprise the only reliable
map and compass to guide him through his life. These comprise the sole
source of ideas and inspiration. The outer world, sex, drink, drugs merely
serve to stimulate this inner world and are not really significant beyond
that.

John Constable :
Brighton Beach with Colliers.

John Constable
: Stonehenge, sketch.

The outer world can eventually become relevant only to
the extent that it resonates with the inner world. It becomes tangential
to the increasingly dominant inner world of vision. In my own case, I can
say that atmospheric places in my childhood made it a most magical place -
such as grandma's bedroom and Uncle Tom's hut - which were seas of deep
tranquillity for me where I always felt happy, warm and very safe. I was
protected and aesthetically nourished there, as if cocooned in my own safe
haven. At that time, only sunshine and birdsong existed as the backdrop to
my happy pursuits; happy pursuits while endlessly and empathically engaged
with everything in my world.

Tanguy : Indefinite
Divisibility.

There are, of course, other, non-spiritual forms of
art. And these expressionist, worldly and existential forms of art, seem
dominated by dead-end browns and blacks and rugged ugly forms, do not
elevate man above matter. Such dark forms of art using rugged, ugly and
repellent colours, images, shapes and subjects seek only to deny, distort
and disfigure what is attractive, lucid and spiritual in this world and in
humanity. Bacon, Freud and others at their work have created what seems
like a pathological breed of ‘art’ that liberates no-one, elevates and
enhances nothing and merely subjugates man below the rugged anonymity and
meaninglessness of substance, as if we are nothing more than molecules
with a dead-end, soul-destroying, spirit-denying numb existence bereft of
direction, meaning or purpose. This form of ‘art’ came into great
prominence during the 20th century, where it has tended to be
accepted far too easily, rather uncritically and unquestioningly. Such
artists seem to have abandoned beauty in favour of ugliness.

Franz Hals : Man
Playing a Lute.

In summary, we can say that though many get drawn to
art, very few have the inner resources to become great, no matter how
technically competent they may become. Inevitably, this is partly due to
transient and ever-changing political and socio-economic factors. However,
as we have already argued, the main reason seems to revolve about engaging
and exploring a creative inner world of imagination, which only a minority
of artists seem able to develop sufficiently to generate a prolific output
of truly original work. Though their inner world might in some cases be
sombre and bleak, and generate only work of a similar stamp, yet that can
still sometimes be regarded as great art if it is revolutionary, original
and breaks new ground, even if it lacks the accepted norms of grace, skill
and beauty, which do evolve through time. Examples of this include some
work of Goya, Ernst and Picasso, and much of Lucien Freud and Francis
Bacon.

Picasso :
Self-portrait in a Pink Smock.

In my own preference, I would say such art is largely
hewn from a grim and unedifying inner world largely built upon human pain
and degradation, rather than the more ethereal art [Botticelli, Leonardo,
Constable, Impressionists] deriving from that which elevates man above
matter, pain and the body towards spiritual truths consistent with the
immutability of our spirit and higher dimensions of consciousness.

Lucien Freud : Queen
Elizabeth II portrait.

Though art does draw inspiration from, imitate and
reflect nature, to some degree, as many have claimed, this also means that
art takes its cue from nature and knows that nature endlessly renews,
purifies and reinvigorates herself. After the collapse and devastation of
wars, empires or merely each winter, the spring nevertheless comes back to
cleanse and renew with flowers and new leaves. It is this endless ability
of nature to renew herself and to astonish us, that inspires the artist
and that echoes the deeper religious impulse inside us.

Picasso : Girl with
Hat.

Picasso : Child with
a Toy Boat.

And this denotes the spiritual, for it is precisely
this self-renewing quality that inspires artists and inspires them to see
through the often dreary, mundane, drab and even tragic physical fabric of
the world. In this way they tap into a hidden spiritual force, pushing
through relentlessly, bringing each year, new blossom, new babies, joy,
birdsong, sunshine, fresh growth, grace and beauty to enrich the world and
our lives. It is this powerful force, transcending matter, which artists
wish to instil into their work, and not merely the dreary physical facts
of form, light and colour. This supramundane quality or essence seems to
resonate with the spiritual yearning in man and the best art acknowledges
this.

Goya : Saturn Eating
His Children.

Disasters happen, wars, misfortunes and tragedies inevitably come and
go, but nature goes ever on, and her amazing ability to shrug off the sad
and ugly past and start again, is an inspiration not only to all of us,
but especially to artists. They see the parallel between nature and the
human condition – a resonance, a form of healing, hope and self-renewal.
This parallel includes both the erotic and the fertile in nature and man
and the creative potential in both as a sheer physical but also a deeper
imaginative and spiritual force at work in man and in nature. In this
respect, art springs from a hidden energy source, a creative will that
lies dormant inside us, and which can be explored and developed into a
rich inner world, unique to each individual and acting as the chief source
of all art, music and literature.